


In Peace We Do Not Rest

by girlwithaknifeinherboot



Category: The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Aleks destroying cannon - Freeform, Aleks under cover - Freeform, Aleksander Morozova has risen - Freeform, Darkness never dies, Deception, Disguise, Dubious Consent Due To Identity Issues, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I haven't read king of scars yet so forgive me - Freeform, Lazarus Aleks - Freeform, Mind Games, Murder, Not Canon Compliant, OP Aleks - Freeform, Power Play, Violent Thoughts, blatant abuse of Merzost - Freeform, i don't actually know what this is, interesting family developments - Freeform, it only comes back more powerful and more pissed - Freeform, lots of orphans - Freeform, secrets and lies, sex is bound to happen but it'll probably be slowburn - Freeform, sexy stuff, small doses of marital cheating, this is not a redemption arc
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-05
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-11-12 09:47:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18008609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/girlwithaknifeinherboot/pseuds/girlwithaknifeinherboot
Summary: The cold bit into his skin and he relished the pain as a welcome delight. Pain meant being alive, in all the senses that truly mattered. With a flick of his fingers, he clothed himself in shadowy silk, the fabric dulling the burn of the chill. The smile he wore now was real, real as his body and his garments, both of which he created through will alone. He was no longer only Grisha—though, arguably, he had never been just a Grisha—now, he was Merzost.The Darkling had perished, and something different had risen in his place. Like he’d taken back life, he’d take back his name—and all else that rightfully belonged to him.Like calls to like.((resurrection fic))





	1. Chapter 1

It was what he expected, dying. Cut free and flung into darkness, into nothing. He was not afraid of the dark. There was sick satisfaction that death suited him, welcomed him like it knew him. What was unexpected was the consciousness, this level of control he retained of mind and thought. He was no longer a man, no body – he’d asked Alina to burn it up. He liked to assume she would keep her word on it, after all that she’d done.

The amalgam of grief and rage in his heart—not his heart, as he was quite literally without—was what made him grasp onto the inkling this may be his personal version of purgatory. What was the point of oblivion if one could still be wracked with treacherous thoughts? He seethed for Ravka to burn and crumble as he wept for its doom. It may take years, decades, but it would not survive without him. No one else could do what needed to be done. Not the bastard Lanstov prince, not Alina—especially not now. 

She’d ruined herself, destroyed all that made her worthy. She was nothing, little more than a husk. Otkazat’sya, and yet—

The ache for her was gaping. She brought him low in all variants of the word. She had been the actual death of him. He wanted to make her pay. He wanted to wrap her in his arms. He wanted to make her whole again. He wanted Alina—he wanted life. 

He screamed into the void, cursed existence itself. He was above this, above time and above death. He’d lived for hundreds upon hundreds of years, conquered every task, every domain he had ever set his mind to. All except for one little saint.

It was not befitting of him to behave this way, even in this strange state of being not quite dead. He’d lost the game, a round of it, but that did not mean all was lost. A man without a mind was nothing, a mind without a man was operable, capable of plotting, of strategizing. He was fine, this was fine.

And so, he contemplated. He pondered. He poured over every inch, every angle of this endless, darkened plane, and when he found it, the chink he could so sweetly exploit, he knew it was not over. The shadows here did not heed him, the darkness did not obey, but there was something else.

The taste of Merzost was bitter and intoxicating, and he filled himself full on it. It was everywhere – he was drowning in it. All this raw power, right at his fingertips, and to think all he had to do was die. The first thing he was going to accomplish, when he got back, was gift Alina the thanks she was owed. Without her, he never would have found it. The making at the heart of the world, around him in its purest form. 

It was a golden thread, luminescent as if it were woven from light itself, and he wondered, idly, as he tugged it free, if it appeared to him that way because of who consumed his thoughts, or if that’s what Merzost was at its essence. Light. It didn’t really matter, though, did it? Not when he could use it for incredible darkness. 

He thought of Ravka, of Alina, hallowed out as she was, and allowed the subconscious form of a smile to grace his thoughts, and then he tore a rip into the world for him to crawl through. Time shook and things around him shattered. The destruction felt like stretching after a too-long slumber. It felt like catharsis. 

The expanse of ice and glistening white of a Ravkan forest splintered and split in two, birds and deer and foxes fleeing, a bleeding wound of black appearing from what seemed to be nowhere. It pulsed and sputtered sentient smoky tendrils, more and more and faster and faster. They zipped about, almost playful, and spun together, stitching, from nothing, their master back into existence. He was formed new, standing bare and blinking in a world that seemed infinitely too bright. 

The cold bit into his skin and he relished the pain as a welcome delight. Pain meant being alive, in all the senses that truly mattered. With a flick of his fingers, he clothed himself in shadowy silk, the fabric dulling the burn of the chill. The smile he wore now was real, real as his body and his garments, both of which he created through will alone. He was no longer only Grisha—though, arguably, he had never been just a Grisha—now, he was Merzost. 

The Darkling had perished, and something different had risen in his place. Like he’d taken back life, he’d take back his name—and all else that rightfully belonged to him. Like calls to like. 

Aleksander Morozova left the scarred grove behind. His dark boots crunched in the snow, a bounce in his step. The air smelled frigid, invigorating his new lungs with each sharp breath. It would be a pleasant trip and he wouldn’t dally; after all, he didn’t want to keep the orphans waiting.


	2. Chapter 2

Keramzin did not look the same. Even without her powers, Alina managed to bring light to the otherwise dreary place. The sound of children’s bright voices, their giggles and games, floated around the old duke’s estate, out to the sparse trees lining the dirt road where Aleksander watched with a critical eye. Alina and her used-up tracker must have been inside, or elsewhere on the property, somewhere out of sight. 

He straightened his peasant’s coat, a rough brown garment he’d switched out his comfortable black for, and emerged from the tree line. There was a young boy playing alone in the shade of a row of hedges, and he did not look up until Aleksander’s form cast a shadow over him. 

The boy’s hair was a sandy brown, his eyes a pale blue. In his grubby little hands were two carved wooden ponies. He did not look afraid. 

“Hello,” he made sure to use an open, amicable tone, “What are you doing over here all by yourself?”

The boy shrugged, “I like being all by myself.”

Aleksander allowed his lips to pull into a smile. “A little introvert then. What is your name?”

“Ivan,” he replied, entirely unthreatened by a strange man asking for his personal information. Tsk, what was Alina teaching them.

“A fine name. Tell me, Ivan, could you do something of the utmost importance for me?”

Ivan regarded him with large, calm eyes, expectant. Aleksander pressed on. “If you would, fetch the headmaster or mistress of the orphanage. I would like to speak with them.”

From his pocket, he flipped a coin. It landed at Ivan’s feet, quickly being snatched up by the boy at the expense of his ponies, which he left lying in the dust he kicked up as he sped toward the house’s expansive porch.  
Aleksander headed the same direction at a leisurely pace. The steps leading up to the porch creaked as he took them one at a time, noting the boards were marked by numerous sets of miniature muddy footprints. On every windowsill were boxes where flowers would be growing, if winter wasn’t looming on the horizon. The windows themselves were open, white linen curtains billowing out to snap in the breeze. The feel of it was like a home, not an orphanage. How utterly wholesome, how domestic. He bit back a sneer. 

He could hear them through the windows, their voices drifting out. Ivan and someone who was not Alina. Unfortunate. 

A woman in a gray dress, her wrinkle-lined face made more stern by her hair tightly wound into a bun, materialized in the doorway, Ivan at her side. “He’s him,” he said, pointing.

The woman’s frown deepened. “Don’t point, child. It’s unseemly.” She fixed her narrow gaze onto Aleksander. The suspicion, the disapproval, the barely concealed hints of disappointment—it reminded him of his mother. 

“Sir, what may I assist you with?”

He urged warmth into his features, donning a prince’s smile and a posture that spoke only of relaxed honesty. He hoped. “I hate to be a bother, madame, but I saw your chimney’s smoke from the road. I’m a traveler, on my way to Os Alta, and I would be ever so thankful if I could rest here for the night.” Hesitation and a flash of warning skirted over her ancient face, her shoulders tensing, so Aleksander turned the wattage up on his smile. “I assure you, I will be gone by tomorrow’s first light. You would hardly know I was here.”

She offered a trace of a smile in return, the fingers that had gripped her skirt so tightly unwinding. “I would offer you board for the night, sir, but I am afraid I cannot. I’m not the mistress of the house. I’m a schoolteacher, for the children.” 

“Ah,” he painted his expression with a touch of polite dejection, “I see. I beg your pardon for the misunderstanding. If I might ask, are there any other dwellings nearby? I’d like to be off the road before the dark sets in.”

The teacher’s thin brows pinched together, lips drawing up. Aleksander waited a breath for her reply. She took a step back from the door. “If you would agree to wait, sir, in the parlor, the master and mistress should be back soon. We have tea and cookies. The cook could make something more substantial, if you’d like.”

Aleksander beamed at her, conveying nothing but relief and gratitude as he mocked her for her naivety. On the inside, of course. “I am in your debt, madame. My sincerest thanks.”

There was a hint of blush on her cheeks as she dipped her head, moving back to allow him entrance. “It’s the generous thing to do,” she replied, looking very prim. “If you’ll follow me to the parlor. Ivan, don’t you have studies to attend? Those grammar pages aren’t going to finish themselves.”

Ivan looked to her and then to Aleksander as if he might overturn her sentence. Aleksander shot him a quick wink. The boy grinned toothily before turning tail and pounding down the hall. 

“Don’t run in the house!” She turned back to him, seemingly embarrassed at the child’s behavior. “They’re supposed to behave themselves in the company of guests, but why would they? They’re never punished, they never face any consequences.”

To that, he gave a noncommittal hum and a sympathetic nod of his head. Discussing the finer points of childrearing was the last thing he intended to do, though it seemed to be suitable enough of a reply, as she set off down the hall with a “right this way, please.”

The cookies hadn’t been a lie. The smell of them, sweet and warm, wafted throughout the rooms. It was all airy and light, filled with the clutter of children and other inane objects. Traces of Alina were all over, her artwork, marked by a careless and free hand. It all looked innocent, happy.

She could have been so much more. 

The parlor was not lavish, but comfortable. The color scheme seemed to be blue and cream with hints of gold, matching to the robin’s egg settee resting before a window that stretched from the polished floor to the roof. The most interesting pieces were the varnished bookcases backed against each wall, bright in their sheen and filled with fairytales, fables, and inaccurate histories. He raised a brow at The Black Heretic: His Favorite Recipes. Glad to see the little saint had not lost her sense of humor in addition to her ability to summon. 

The teacher stood by the open archway leading to the parlor, indicating him to enter with a slight gesture of her hand. “Please,” she said as he walked past, “Make yourself at home.” 

Aleksander took her advice and sat in the middle of the settee. He watched her carry over the silver tea tray, setting it before him on a low table. Next to it was a vase he could have sworn used to be in the palace. It was from Shu Han, it was priceless, and it did not belong here. Prince Nikolai must have bequeathed it to the happy couple. It irked him to see it. 

The cup clinked as she placed the spout of the teapot against it and began to pour a fragrant, steaming liquid. It seemed to be peach, with hints of ginger. 

He sat forward, put out a hand. “Please, you don’t have to do that, Madame—” He let it hang, asking for a name without asking. Truly, he did not care, but it was about establishing territory, familiarity, both of which being of immense aid in any invasion. 

Her lips twitched slightly, and she sat the white and blue-etched china down. “Ania.” 

Aleksander brought the fragile cup to his lips, taking a sip. He was correct in naming the flavors. “Thank you, Ania. I am Isak.”

She watched him for a moment, considering. She straightened her skirts. “I’ll speak to the cook about dinner. You must be starved, Isak.”

He smiled from around the rim of the cup, “Famished.” 

She returned it, “Then it will be a feast.” The sharp clacks of her footsteps could be heard as she swished out of the parlor and out into the hall, off, presumably, to pester the cook. 

He swirled the tea about on his tongue, enjoying the spiced taste provided by the ginger. It was a fine cup of tea, though, he could be biased by the fact it was the first thing he’d consumed since coming back to life. Finishing and setting it aside, his eyes tracked again to the books. While he waited for dinner, or for Alina and her husband, whichever came first, there wasn’t much to do in the meantime. Reading proved to be the most attractive option. 

And that’s what he was doing when she came in, the tracker close on her heels, per usual. 

She looked the same, and then again, she didn’t. Her hair flowed down from her head like a silken crown spun from white-gold. The tilt of her nose, the set of her lips, her stance—little was different about it. And yet, this was not the same girl who daggered him in the heart on the Fold. There was newfound maturity about her, a sort of serenity, the kind that comes after years of manipulating yourself into believing you’d found peace.

As he slid his dusty boots off the table and plopped down The Black Heretic: His Favorite Recipes into the place they’d vacated, he squashed the impulse to shake her senseless and inform her, politely, there was no such thing as peace. 

“Who are you?” 

Aleksander blinked, his gaze unwillingly sliding to Mal. He’d forgotten the presence of the Otkazat’sya already. 

One of the most interesting things about filling yourself full of Merzost were the new abilities that came along with it. No longer bound by odinakovost and etovost, thisness and thatness, Aleksander found he could move between the Grisha orders at will. He was not only a Shadow Summoner, but a Squaller, a Durast, a Heartrender, a Healer… a Tailor, and so on.

The face he bore now showed little resemblance to the long-dead Darkling, hair much too blond, jaw too square, eyes too blue, nose too broken. He’d taken some creative liberties. 

“Isak,” he bowed his head, looking every bit the bashful guest. He renewed that telltale Fjerdan accent. “Ania allowed me in, a welcome respite from the road.”

“Ania?” The tracker echoed, intelligently, but Aleksander had eyes only for Alina. He held his breath, waiting for her to recognize him, waiting for to her to see through the façade. She’d know him anywhere, surely, like he would know her. He could practically feel the warmth of her body from all the way across the room, and yet—

“You’re Fjerdan,” she said, sure of herself. 

Still, she continued to fail him. Aleksander smiled in front of gritted teeth. “Yes, madame.”

“Fjerdan, huh? What’s a Fjerdan doing at an orphanage in Ravka?”

Having to look at Oretsev and do anything but vanquish him was akin to having his eyeballs sanded. “I am... a refugee, so to speak. I’ve come to seek a place in the King’s army.”

Alina and her other shared a dubious look. “You want to fight for Ravka?”

Aleksander forced the blood to rush to his face, casting it to a red tint. Embarrassed, ashamed even. “In the King’s Second Army.”

Their faces blossomed into twin images of understanding. Forget a fiddle—they were easier to play than a roadshow Glockenspiel. 

“Well,” drawled the tracker, “It’s getting late. I don’t suppose you’d object to spending the night with us and about a hundred children—Alina, dear, do you mind?”  
Alina cast her warm brown gaze to him, filled with nothing but compassion and misplaced trust, “Of course he can stay.” Even after the loss of her powers, she was still rife with Grisha comradery. The status, the oppression, excellent for teambuilding and, perhaps, exploitation.

Again, the clack of heels resounded from the hardwood outside the parlor. “Isak,” Ania called, “Dinner is nearly—” She crested the corner, laid eyes on her employers and went white. “Oh, Mr. and Mrs. Oretsev, I had no idea you’d returned, none of the children said anything.” She held out a shaky hand, “This is Isak, he’s—”

“We know,” Oretsev said, cutting her off and automatically assuming she was referring to him being Grisha, which Ania had no idea of and more than likely would not react well to. “Isak, join us for dinner?”

Dutifully, he nodded. “Of course.”

For the main course they feasted on Beef Stroganoff, and for dessert, Medovik. Much sour cream was sacrificed in the making of this dinner. To all outside of Aleksander’s psyche, conversation was pleasant. It was going to be a hard winter. Oretsev’s opinion on the new army, which was entirely incorrect. The cabbages had been good that year. Tales of the deeds of some particularly rapscallion of the youths at the orphanage. And finally, Alina asked, “What order do you belong to, Isak?”

He spared a half-second of thought to consider if a refugee from Fjerda would know of the Grisha orders, but then decided his good Ravkan mother, who died on the journey, may the saints be with her, would have educated her son on the subject. It would also explain why he spoke their native language oh so well. “Corporalki, that is the word, correct? I am a Healer.”

The tracker dropped his fork onto his plate, silver clanking against porcelain with the obnoxiousness that had come to associate itself with the individual at fault. “You’re a Healer?”

Had he stuttered? 

“Yes.”

Aleksander was not fond of the way the tracker looked to Alina at that moment, the way their fingers snaked to join over the tablecloth. He was not fond of their shared silence, the manner in which they seemed to communicate without the need for words. He was not fond at all of how they operated as one, as if there could be any unity between a Saint and a worm, other than the worms feeding off their decaying flesh post-martyrdom. If he were less patient and more impulsive, he would have killed the tracker where he sat, cut in half and turning the upholstery red. 

“Can we confide in you something personal, Isak?” 

Curiosity piqued, Aleksander would have arched a brow, but opted for something more Isak-like: an earnest bob of the head tinged with a touch of confusion. “Of course.” 

Alina gave her husband’s hand a gentle squeeze, one he returned. “I’m with child.”

This would be the point where he would smile, an easy thing to do, just a few contractions of the facial muscles, and offer congratulations, a simple vibration of the vocal cords. But he… couldn’t. He sat there, still as a fox caught in the ice of an unexpected freeze, fingers twitching with the purest sensation of emotionalized murder he’d felt, ever, in his entire life. Both.

“Like we were discussing earlier, this winter… it’s going to be a rough one. It’s doubtful we could get a Healer out here, and traveling to Os Alta would be out of the question, but since you’re already here—how would you feel about wintering with us? You would be paid well and come the spring you’d be off to the Second Army, pockets a little fuller.”

Aleksander sat there, blinking, stewing, seething. He did not claw his way back to life, violate every natural law in the Small Science, to deliver Malyen Oretsev’s retched, Otkazat’sya spawn. He sought out Alina’s gaze, praying to see some sign she knew this was not the life she had been created to lead. Any woman could lie on her back and spit out babies until she, inevitably, died—Alina was the Sun Summoner, a Saint. She could have been immortal, she could have been his queen, and what was she now? A broodmare to a worm.  
The smile felt like it split his face, as painful as if it might’ve. “Nothing would make me happier.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do I know how to write from the POV someone much older, much hotter, much smarter, much more powerful, and much eviler than me? No. The answer is no, but I tried. 
> 
> Also, I took liberties, many liberties.


	3. Chapter 3

He was given a room on the staff’s wing of the estate. It was modest, filled with the ordinary, much like Keramzin and now Alina herself, but it would serve his needs. Rather, it would serve Isak’s. It did not feel strange, nor had he expected it to. He’d spent the vast portion of his long life living in the skin of someone else, pretending. That was the curse of existence without a natural end.

 

He’d hoped to build a Ravka where pretending would no longer be necessary. Here, in this place, his goal felt farther away than ever.

 

It wasn’t logical, he would admit—there was little to gain from being here, playing the role of Fjerdan Healer to a pregnant, used-up saint. But it was an itch he had to scratch, a bruise he must press, a wound that demanded to be salted. He had to see what she’d become without him.

 

He wasn’t impressed, but that didn’t matter, did it?

 

Alina never cared for his thoughts of her. If she had, this would not be her reality—their reality. The tracker would be long dead, turned to dust and incapable of furthering his legacy the only way an Otkazat’sya knew how. It was a wasted life, void of meaning and purpose. He was made lesser by simple association with it, and yet, it still hurt him. Seeing her felt like it did when she plunged the blade of Grisha Steel into his chest. Her happiness here was his wound reopened, only this time the blade was twisting deeper and it could not be removed.

 

And what was there left for him to do?

 

She was no longer useful to him, except perhaps in the form of a reminder to never assume, ever, that an equal for him existed. He was truly alone, as isolated as if the world were the Fold, black and filled with nothing but mindless, pathetic creatures. It was a mercy to end them.

 

Mercy was not what filled his mind as he lay down to sleep, the pitter-patter of children’s small footsteps filling the house below him. He’d none left for her, nor any of her associates. He would burn this place to the ground, yet again, and reclaim the throne from the last remaining Lantsov, but first, he would deliver Alina’s child. He would make her realize, brutally, just who she’d placed it in the hands of, and then, he’d erase her too. There would be nothing left to haunt him.

 

That night, he had no dreams, subconscious an ever-stretching sea of darkness, calm and unaffected by the monsters that lay beneath.

 

* * *

 

 Aleksander rose before the sun. When the door shut behind him with a soft click, the halls were gray and silent. It was preferred. He wanted to acquaint himself with the small labyrinth that was the newly rebuilt Keramzin. Its secrets places, nooks, crannies, and hidden parts, he would paint them all to memory. Perhaps he would ask Ivan, later after the boy had awakened—children always knew the best places to go unseen.

 

He went from the staff wing, charting the floorboards and stairs that creaked, how many bedrooms there were and how many of them were filled, to the core of the estate. The doors to the dining room stood open, the table they’d all sat around and chatted so amicably at last night looking long and lonesome. With a well-timed rumble of his stomach, he decided to also peek in at the kitchens.

 

It was darkened, shadows cast against a cobbled floor and dull faded walls. Behind the stove, there were grease stains, counters lined beneath windows that would have bathed the place in light if it were at a later point in the day. On a leviathan-sized island sat a tray of cookies from yesterday, and at the end of it sat Alina Starkov, crumbs down the front of her thin blue nightgown.

 

He felt caught, a sensation exacerbated by the fact she’d seen him enter and opted to keep her presence unannounced, watching him and eating cookies.

 

Forcing a smile, he came forward, further into the kitchen and over the threshold of being not quite in the room, not quite in the hall. “Good morning, you’re up early, miss.”

 

She made an attempt to brush the crumbs from her chest, causing the silky material to drag over her breasts in a way he pretended not to notice for both their sakes. “I was hungry.”

 

He gave a light laugh, coming to the edge of the island and hovering. “A symptom of your condition, I’m afraid.”

 

She raised an eyebrow. “If only pregnant women get hungry, why are you awake at this hour, Isak?”

 

He rubbed the back of his neck, making sure to look a bit abashed. “I suppose hunger is universal—I apologize for barging in. I didn’t think anyone would be up.”

 

Alina hummed and turned her head to the side, gaze directed out one of the imposing windows and looking somewhere far away. “It’s alright. I like it in here at this time—it’s so nice, when the sun rises.”

 

He supposed it would be. The tint of her features satisfied him, a little sad, missing something long lost, long sacrificed. It was possible she wasn’t as contented as he originally thought.

 

“I’ve always been more of nighttime thinker, myself,” he said, reaching toward the tray of sweets, “If you don’t mind, I’ll just take a few of these and go. I don’t want to disturb you.”

 

She looked back to him, patting a stool adjacent to hers. “Nonsense, stay and eat. You can keep me company.”

 

Nostalgic and lonely, it seemed, a toxic mixture he was all too familiar with the taste of. Perhaps she wanted the presence of a Grisha, yet another reminder of what once was hers. He would oblige.

 

Rounding the island, he sought out her stomach, wanting to see if she was yet visible. They had not lied. Her belly showed, only slightly, a small rounded bump made available to the eye only due to the thinness of the fabric over it. He fought to keep the scowl off his face as he sat.

 

She leaned her chin against her palm and her elbow against the countertop. “Tell me about yourself, Isak.”

 

He grimaced around the cookie, the sugary morsel crumbling on his tongue. “If it’s alright, I’d rather you tell me about you. Memories of home are… painful.” He painted over his expression with the proper emotions. “It seems like a lifetime ago, now.”

 

The scars behind her eyes showed through, and he knew his words jogged her own painful memories. Between her reactions and the cookies, he found his mood improving rapidly.

 

“It can be a hard life for a Grisha,” she said after a moment’s passing. “I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you in Fjerda.”

 

He allowed time to slip between her words and his response. It was difficult for him to speak of it, after all.

 

“I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Worrying every moment of every day that you might be discovered, knowing what will happen if they do. I’ve seen my kind burn—I can still smell it,” he held her gaze without blinking, saw nothing but the naïve horror in hers, the empathy she should have grown out of, “But you know what the worst part was, out of all of it?” He leaned closer, “The lies I had to tell myself to get by. Not using my powers, pretending to be like everyone else when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Every day was a prison, being stripped of who I was—that’s a fate worse than death, isn’t it?” He shot her a quick, uncertain grin, “Now that I know what freedom is like, what power is like, I couldn’t go back to that. I’d rather be dead than wasting away, one day at a time.”

 

He noticed her fingers fidgeting, her shoulders sagging, even a little jerk of her head. He’d touched a nerve.

 

Her voice was hoarse, distant. “I’m sorry you went through all that.”

 

It was a consolatory response, basic and lacking in authenticity. No doubt she was too busy feeling sorry for herself to extend that same piteous zeal to poor Isak. No matter how filled with Mal and their baby, she was still empty, and that made him feel a little less so.

 

He bit into a second cookie, the delightfully sweet taste at odds with the somber set of his jaw. “It is what it is.” He shrugged, “I don’t wallow, I’m only glad to be alive.”

 

Alina smiled, and it did not reach her eyes. “That’s all that really matters, right?”

 

“Exactly. Dying leaves so much left undone.”

 

And it would all be accomplished in due time, quite literally, in this case.

 

* * *

 

The house woke up in stages, first the staff, next the children, and with their yapping and yelping only then did the tracker arise, messy headed and blurry eyed. He and Alina took their breakfast, her second if the cookies from dawn could be counted, out in the garden despite the chill lingering in the air. Aleksander watched them from the terrace above, hands folded behind his back, and noted how isolated they were, surrounded by tall garden walls and a maze of hedges. If something were to befall them there, they would not be found for hours.

 

Classes began shortly after breakfast. With little better to do, he decided to peer in on a few of the classrooms in session. The children were bored, the lessons tedious, but he approved. Knowledge was the only way Otkazat’sya might improve themselves. He eyes fell to Ivan, the boy alone in the furthest corner, nose buried in a book much too advanced for him. Aleksander felt the beginnings of a smile before the teacher, a red-faced old man, motioned rather impolitely that he should leave.

 

The teachers took their lunch at noon. As one of the staff, he was expected to join them. He thought not. Instead, he lounged in the parlor where he might be left alone. Or so he’d assumed. Not one chapter into the book he’d plucked up and the tracker was already, presumptuously, sitting opposite him in an upholstered chair.

 

“How are you finding the place, Isak? It all to your liking?”

 

Not everything. The people who thought it prudent to start pointless conversations while the other party was clearly reading were the scum of the earth.

 

Not putting down the book, hoping but doubting Oretsev would get the message, he responded over the top of the ridged spine, “Why yes. It’s probably the best orphanage I’ve ever had the pleasure of staying in.”

 

He was either incapable of understanding sarcasm or he’d simply elected to ignore it because he continued on, oblivious. “Good, good. I was thinking, since you’re not busy—”

 

Aleksander arched a brow in disgust.

 

“—we could do a little hunting later, closer to sundown. We need to stockpile venison for winter, may as well start now.”

 

The man’s use of ‘we’ was as sickening as it was impetuous, nothing less than he’d expected of the man-child who’d attempted to steal his stag. Just as he was about to refuse, as attractive as the opportunity for male bonding with a waste of space was, Aleksander stopped just short.

 

He put down his book, “I’d like that.”

 

* * *

 

He peered down the length of the rifle’s barrel. Between the sights, the tracker was lined up perfectly.

 

The Otkazat’sya grinned back at him, waving the rabbits he’d caught in his traps as if he intended to lob them over the distance. The sun shifted, golden-orange light streaking between the barren branches of the trees, and Aleksander squeezed the trigger.

 

The shot echoed in his ears, sending a murder of crows up into the air, squawking out their displeasure. Oretsev’s joviality faded fast to confusion, eyes sparkling with sudden adrenalin and perhaps fear for his life, and Aleksander raised the hand not gripping the rifle, pointing carelessly in the general direction behind the tracker. Oretsev turned and spotted the deer that had happened to prance through the forest at just the wrong time.

 

“Good shot,” he called back, quick to put the image of a man aiming a rifle at his head, a man with a cold, furious face, firmly out of mind.

 

“Not quite good enough,” he murmured and reloaded.

 

At the end of the day, they brought back several rabbits and a dead deer. Unlike those animals, the tracker got to keep his life. For now. Aleksander couldn’t forget what it felt like, zeroed in on him—he’d been at the complete mercy of his worst enemy, and he was none the wiser.

 

Aleksander decided he liked this game, one with rules only he knew, one only he knew existed.

 

 

* * *

 

 They brought their catch to an outbuilding on the edge of the property, one with the sole purpose of butchering and skinning. It had a stone floor with a drain and many, many rust-colored stains. There were hooks to hang dead things and a metal table to lay them on. Above it a single lantern was lit, swinging in lazy, disorienting circles.

Alina had come to see what they’d brought, sharing a kiss with Malyen despite him having blood on his hands from the doe they were cutting open. At one point in the evening, she peered over his shoulder and covered her mouth.

 

“She was pregnant.”

 

Aleksander grinned like a wolf and continued gutting. “So it seems.”

 

* * *

 

 Her stomach was warm, his hands were cold. She winced from it, and he retracted them, rubbing his palms together to create friction before he returned to press them against her.

 

“Apologies.” He raised his head and smiled up at her, “So, what are you hoping for?”

 

From his seat beside their marriage bed, Oretsev said ‘boy,’ in complete synchronization with Alina’s firm ‘girl.’ They looked at each other, irritation evident in each their ways. A silence, awkward in nature, followed. He was pleased to be the sower of any discord between the pair, even if it were inadvertent.

 

Isak offered them an innocent, diplomatic smile, “Twins, perhaps—does it run in either of your families?”

 

Lesson learned, Oretsev kept quiet and allowed his wife to answer. Her brows furrowed, “Not that we know of.”

 

Of course they wouldn’t know. They were war orphans, flung into Keramzin with nothing but each other to cling to. It was that little woeful, wretched history of theirs that had been the death of him, Alina’s stumbling block from the start. It was his first mistake, underestimating the bond that only true loneliness, true desperation, can forge between two souls. His second mistake was believing he could have fostered it with Alina. For bonds to be built, there must be mutuality, something tender shared. Now he knew better than to think for an instant there was anything they held in common.

 

“Well,” he told her earnestly, “You never know.”

 

“There’s no way to tell?” Oretsev asked.

 

He had to settle for rolling his eyes internally. “No. There isn’t some magic trick to reveal gender, even for Grisha.”

 

Oretsev looked disappointed, but his foolish question wasn’t entirely useless. Inside Aleksander’s head, the gears were whirring. For a Grisha, such things were impossible—they were bound by nature, by science. Those laws no longer applied to him. Who knew how Merzost might affect such an undeveloped being. It was entirely possible, and entirely insane, to think he might be able to make their child anything he wanted, just like he’d remade himself. He recalled what he’d done to the king, _Korol Rezni,_ and that had been before _._

 

It was food for thought.

 

“You’re in perfect health,” he ran the tips of his fingers down her sides, over her hips. There was an interesting little catch in her throat, but she said nothing. The tracker, Aleksander having sought out his gaze, said nothing. “Congratulations to you both.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, voice just a notch above a whisper.

 

Aleksander would have his throne. He would destroy Alina and all that she’d grown, but in the meantime, he decided he might like to destroy her marriage.

 

“It’s my pleasure.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I think I made him worse than in the books??? But I like to think it's just because his ego is still smarting from the whole her killing him thing. Aleksander has feelings, too.


	4. Chapter 4

He decided to make it a ritual. Early, quiet mornings spent with Alina in the kitchen, talking about trivial nonsense and eating up whatever sweets the cook had baked the day before. And when the sun rose behind the eastward windows, he watched her glow, hair alight and eyes soft, fingers playing in the buttery rays, and they both ached for the past.

 

However short-lived it had been.

 

Truly, the months she’d spent at his side, his little mouse of a summoner, were drops in water when sat opposite the years that lay behind him. It didn’t seem right, then, those were the memories burned into his mind. The weight of them rested close by, readily accessible and too bright. But then they’d went to war, and he remembered that vividly, too. He remembered how he was certain, even up to that last day on the Fold, that she would come to him, that she would see reason. That he would be enough for her.

 

She never came.

 

Always, always, he to her—even now. He’d clawed his way back to life for this, to have her or destroy her. He wondered if it were one and the same. He wondered if it mattered. He wondered which he desired more.

 

Alina was mid-sentence, elbows on the counter like usual, when she froze, brows shooting up towards her hairline. “The baby just kicked,” her voice was excited, lively as the thing within her, “She did it again—” She snatched up his hand, placing it on her swelling stomach, “Feel that.”

 

Aleksander felt it, her hand over his, soft and warm, just like the skin of her abdomen, burning him through her clothes. Dully, and with disgust, he also felt the flailing movement of the aforementioned baby. It was strange, being thumped against by a person that was within another person. He realized, with a jolt, this was the first child he ever experienced kicking from the womb.

 

“Does it hurt?”

 

Alina frowned, “No. It feels sort of like… bubbles,” she scrunched up her nose, laughing, “Does that make sense?”

 

It didn’t. None of this was making any sense. He was sitting in the kitchen of Keramzin, which he’d once razed to the ground, with Alina, who’d killed him, while feeling the first movements of her child, conceived with the tracker. He’d had hallucinations that were less surreal.

 

But it was him, and not the tracker, who was here. It was a moment he’d stolen from them, a shard of domestic bliss they’d never get to have again, not for the first time. First times were special, in a distinctly Otkazat’sya way; they only had the present. A future, to them, was an uncertain privilege, something prayed for and pondered about. And even then, it would come to an abrupt, uncaring end. He would not allow himself to forget that’s what Alina was now. It’s what she’d chosen to be.

 

He retracted his hand. “Is this what you always wanted?”

 

She took her bottom lip between her teeth, a nervous tick, and, as far as he could tell, newly developed. “A baby?”

 

Aleksander gestured about the room. “All of it—an orphanage, a husband, and a baby—is it what you always wanted?”

 

“Yes,” she breathed out at the same time he held his, “In a way it is. Growing up—” she stopped herself and gave him a look, more than likely wondering what she could say, how much she could trust him with, “Growing up, I felt like I was missing something. I wanted a family, I suppose, and to belong.” She smiled, softly, “I always said I would marry Mal. I never thought about having kids, though. It’s what you do, though, isn’t it? I guess I assumed we would have all this, probably on a little farm and not Keramzin, but this is right. This is home.”

 

An art long since perfected, the blow those words carried did not show. Instead, Aleksander tugged them inward, placing them next to his heart where the scar left by her dagger ought to have been, where he’d nurture and raise them. He’d keep them close so that when the time came, when she lay at his feet, bleeding and begging, he would remember it, and his aim would be true.

 

Despite the sting, the withering vein of mounting disappointment, it was everything he’d expected, all that he’d feared. There had never been room for him in her tidy, prosaic little picture. He’d been willing to serve her all the world on a silver platter, but it wouldn’t have come close to pleasing her. She wanted a hovel at the edge of the woods, filled with the runoff of Ravka’s wars and carpets ruined with mud. Shadows throbbed at his fingertips.

 

“So that’s it? Marriage, children, death. How… traditional.”

 

The look she gave him was sharp, and he knew he hadn’t masked all the bitterness in his voice. “And what is it you want then, Isak? A soldier’s life for you? Surely, there’s better things than the Second Army. There’s better things than war.”

 

He exhaled, hard, old chords struck. “I don’t want war—”

 

She didn’t let him finish, patchwork blotches of color creeping up her neck. “Then why join the army? That’s what they do, you know, fight wars. You’re a Healer—”

 

The bang that reverberated off the marble countertop when he’d brought his fist down on it surprised both of them. Much less forcefully, a near whisper, he said, “Don’t tell me what I am.”

 

Alina regarded him silently for several beats. He could almost see her walls rebuilding, her warmth withdrawing—it reminded him of so many times before. “I apologize,” her voice was completely even, withheld, “I won’t make that mistake again.” And she stood up.

 

Barely, he managed to stop himself from reaching out for her. She flounced away, the night robe she’d taken to wearing gripped tightly around her. Water slipping between his fingers, ground lost to what—hurt feelings?

 

Long after her departure, he remained. The shadows danced around him.

 

* * *

 

 Days after their argument, if it could even be classified as such, Alina was avoiding him. It was beyond irritating, and all his fault. For a dangerous instant, he’d lost control, both of her and himself. He’d been the Darkling, trying to explain things, trying to make her see. That had never worked then, either. Now, he had to do something to bridge this new-found iciness between them. It could not grow, it could not be allowed to make things difficult. Lucky for him, Isak was not above such banal conventions like apologizing.

 

She was in the garden with her husband, their breath coming out in twin white puffs. The plan was to wait for him to leave so that they might be alone, so that the whole thing would be altogether more intimate, but Malyen fucking Oretsev.

 

“Isak!” He called, waving as if to physically pull him closer, “Come join us.” From her place beside him, Alina crossed her arms over her chest. Her posture alone spoke of defense, not mentioning the scowl she made little attempt to conceal. It matched, perfectly, the one he was forced to. She was still so petulant.

 

It was of note, however, how unattuned the tracker was to her moods. Or he was choosing to ignore them—either way, it was a door left ajar.

 

Hands tucked into his coat, he came to the edge of their table. “Kind of a chilly place to take one’s tea, don’t you think?”

 

“You cold?” Oretsev raised a brow in silent challenge, “Aren’t you from Fjerda?”

 

Aleksander offered up a humorous smile, “I left.”

 

“Fair enough. Why don’t you take a seat?”

 

Aleksander did not care for the way this insignificant man was directing him about. Teeth on edge, he sat—the objective was to resolve an uncomfortable situation, not create another, but if push came to shove, he was not above it. His gaze went to Alina; she refused to meet it, eyes cast toward the graying hedges.

 

Oretsev took a gulp of his tea and deep breath before speaking. “Alina says the baby’s started kicking.” He grinned, proud of the fetus’ accomplishment, “He’s a fighter already.”

 

Aleksander quirked his head in interest.

 

Naturally, she’d went and told her darling husband all about their child’s first milestone, but she’d left one gapping detail out of the story—him—and though she knew he knew, she didn’t react. The polite, and obviously expected, thing to do was go along with it, let Oretsev have his fatherly pride. Unfortunate, then, he wasn’t in the business of being pleasant, and he would not miss an opportunity to prove it.

 

“I can believe that,” he smiled, “The kicks did feel quite solid.”

 

Alina jerked her chin towards him. She wore a starker than usual pallor, if possible, but in that moment her cheeks were flushed. “He was checking up on a side pain I was having when it happened. Apparently, it was just the baby’s foot in my ribs.”

 

“Oh,” Oretsev’s smile wavered and dimmed before he could renew it. “I’m glad that it was nothing. Tell me, the next time you’re having any pain, won’t you?”

 

Alina sipped her own tea. Over the rim, her eyes found his—they were ice. “Of course.”

 

Aleksander smiled back at her as pleasantly as he could. He helped himself to their tea, “To fighting babies.”

 

* * *

 

Keramzin had a library. Many of its books were new, freshly cut, and the ones that weren’t were pressed with the royal seal of Ravka. A donation from the good king. Aleksander ran his fingers over the seal and wondered if there’d been a library here before, what might’ve been written on the pages that burned. Loss of knowledge was regrettable, though he did not regret it.

 

He was thumbing through a cartographer’s account of the creation of the Unsea, mentally correcting the timeline, when he heard it. Just a little hiccup, a miniscule sniffle.

 

Aleksander replaced the history on the shelf and peered around it. Under a bay window, surrounded by a small fort of books, was the young orphan boy, Ivan. Wet tracks ran down his cheeks, blood slowly dribbled from his busted bottom lip.

 

Keeping his footfalls soft, he approached with caution. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you it’s rude to bleed on books?”

 

The boy started hard, knocking over a stack on his right, blinking up at him with big, watery eyes. Aleksander lowered himself to a crouch. “What happened?”

 

Ivan swiped at his cheeks angrily. “I fell.”

 

Aleksander hummed, leaning forward and grabbing the boy’s chin. He only resisted for a moment. “Some fall.”

 

Ivan jerked his head back when Aleksander began coaxing the flesh of his lip to knit itself together. “Why’s it itching?”

 

“Because,” Aleksander tilted his head, getting a better look, “It’s healing.”

 

Ivan gaped. “You’re…you’re a Grisha, aren’t you?”

 

“I am.”

 

He went quiet, wincing every other second or so, but he did not move. Stoic, for a child—it was almost impressive. “A girl hit me.”

 

Aleksander shrugged and leaned back, wiping the remaining blood from the boy’s mouth with the side of his hand. “Girls are mean.”

 

Ivan sniffled, feeling at his bottom lip with careful, prodding fingers. “Can you stop a man’s heart?”

 

“No, but I once knew a man also named Ivan who could do that and more.”

 

“Was he your friend?”

 

Aleksander considered. “I suppose.”

 

“What happened to him?”

 

“He died.”

 

Ivan’s eyes widened. “Did you kill him?”

 

“Why would you think that?”

 

The boy shrugged. “You look mean.”

 

Aleksander ruffled his hair as he stood. “I am mean.”

 

* * *

 

 The cracks were starting to show through. It lasted longer than he’d thought, but Aleksander decided it best to spend the evening in his room, tailoring over the truth. The roots of his hair slowly and steadily faded from dark brown to blonde, the color being leeched away. In the mirror, the gray of his irises swirled with more and more blue until all hints of quartz were erased entirely.

 

It was strange to tailor yourself. He thought of Genya Safin, of her wailing screams. Yet another sin he’d committed on Alina’s behalf.

 

Satisfied with his work, he turned away, but as he did, he caught a glimpse of his side profile and the dark mark up upon it. Aleksander stopped short, tilted his head. A black vein, a shadow just beneath the flesh, streaked up the length of his jaw.

 

That was new.

 

He ran his fingers over it, and it throbbed.  Not painfully, but present—and cold. Now that he was paying proper attention, he realized he was cold all over, all the way through. He’d been cold since the morning, since tea. He wondered if—

 

There was a sharp, quick succession of knocks on the frame outside the bedroom door. He sucked his teeth and set to work on drawing the shadow down, deep within his skin. If it didn’t tailor—well, he would be in dire straits, wouldn’t he?

 

“A moment,” he called, the hasty, imprecise pace at which he worked prickling uncomfortably across his nerves.

 

The mark faded away in increments, slowly and hesitantly. It left behind a dull, burning pain, and Aleksander knew it was still there, masked by the tailoring and nothing else. He checked, for the third time, that it wasn’t visible before conceding to his late-night visitor’s insistence.

 

Alina, dressed for sleep and leaning against his doorjamb, hand sprawled absently over her belly, blinked at him through the yawn he’d caught her in as he pulled the wooden barrier open. Her hair was tamed back into an untidy braid—the second time he’d seen her with it up. The first was at the ball, the night she’d disappointed him for the first time. The night she’d left.

 

A smile threatened to tug at his frown as he recalled the garment room. Alina had been many things before matron of Keramzin. Young and willing were among them.

 

“Hi,” she said, again drawing her bottom lip between her teeth, “Can I come in?”

 

Isak was hesitant, Aleksander was not. He had to settle for something in-between, the memory of her hot mouth against his own brought fresh to the mind. He gave her a silent nod, and she slipped past him, her arm brushing his. Aleksander checked to see if the halls were empty, to see if anyone had seen her. Whether the hour or luck, there was no one in sight.

 

He shut the door, leaned back against it, folded his arms over his chest and waited.

 

She fidgeted a bit, glancing around the room. It was exactly the way it’d been before he came. He’d changed nothing—there was no point. “I came to apologize.”

 

Those were words he never expected to hear coming from her mouth. In another lifetime, he wouldn’t have trusted them, and it would have been a knife in his gut—a carrot cruelly dangled, something he lusted to be true. But now, he knew she was telling the truth because these words were not for him. They were for Isak. He had never hated a persona he’d created more.

 

He uncrossed his arms. “You don’t have to do that. I was the one who lost my temper. I—"

 

Alina grimaced. “I do. You were right. My life choices are my own, and I shouldn’t judge another for following a different path. I don’t know you, not really, but I know you must have your reasons. Ravka’s armies could always use more good men.”

 

It was intriguing that even while apologizing, she was doing the exact thing she was apologizing for: assuming. She assumed he was a good man, that he was telling the truth and had done so in the past. That he was going to do what he’d said he was going to do—help her bring her happy, healthy baby into the world—and be off to join the king’s army. None of these things were the slightest bit honest, but she’d decided they were, and based on what? The word of a Grisha refugee hightailing it from Fjerda. She never even questioned it. Alina swallowed lies willfully, just as she had before. It was startling the worst thing that’d ever happened to her was him.

 

Aleksander wondered, and not for the first time, how this woman had ever stood as such opposition—how she had won. But the answer was clear. It was afflicting him presently. Hesitation and the weakness in him that called out for her. Just like this strange new chill, his desire for what she represented could not be abated. Wanting was dangerous. Wanting that ran beneath rage, beneath reason, was lethal.

 

She might’ve been foolish, plagued with maudlin sentiments and other, lesser qualities, but she was young. For him, there was no excuse. He supposed he wouldn’t make any. He would suffer this, take his pyrrhic victory and then his country.

 

“Thank you,” he said, the lie rolling off his tongue with a slippery ease, “That means a lot from you.”

 

She nodded, posture uncertain, fingers playing with the ribbons of her robe. “That’s all I had to say.” She came close to him, and it took him a moment of staring at her, drinking in her presence, to realize she was waiting for him to unblock his person from the door.

 

He moved unhurriedly and not much, and Alina moved past him. The feel of her, only briefly, was warming, so warming, just as he remembered. Better than he remembered because that was then, and this was now. He could have touched her, leaned down to kiss her neck. It’s what he wanted, but he didn’t dare. He cursed his weakness as he railed for not being able to act on it.

 

Alina stopped just into the hall. She didn’t look back when she asked, “See you in the morning?” Her voice was soft like a secret, one he’d like to keep.

 

“See you in the morning,” he affirmed. His voice was softer.

 

He shut the door, pressed his forehead against it. He wanted to destroy her, but first—

 

But first, he would have her. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aleksander: *wants to have his cake and eat it, too.*
> 
> Alina: *is cake*


End file.
